What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Wabbit]

I added a reactor, generator, radiator and antimatter scoop to the JLIS.

[pauix]

I launched some bottle rockets into space

[michaelhester07]

2 day hiatus from the forums and we're back!

My space program didn't sleep however. Here's the scoop on it!

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Work at the Alpha Minmus Shipyard continues as we prep the Orion 3 for its journey to Jool. The new O3 is my first space built cruiser. While she was under construction the Orion 2 arrived in orbit of Duna to carry out some Gravity work. This is in preparation to build the Utopia Planitia ship yard in orbit of Ike. That will mark the first step in Duna's colonization.

The Andromeda class cruiser was built and then quickly de-commissioned when a quantum singularity found one of her nuclear reactors was discovered to distort time around her and make everything slow down. (lol part count was too high)

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Back home the construction of the first Enterprise class carrier (I named her Discovery) is completed at the Kerbin Spacedock. Crew and passengers are transferred over to her and to the Orion 3. Discovery will go to Eve first and then to Moho. She just awaits a shipment of rocket parts to build any necessary probe or lander on site with.

[cantab]

Last night I narrowly avoided a major disaster with this ship, the Whittle.

Second stage by cantab314, on Flickr

Designed to throw a load of Kerbals into orbit; for this launch I had 21 on board. It's not meant to bring them back, so while it does have chutes and an LES landing is still a bit unsafe.

Anyway I established periapsis and had only a 90 m/s circularisation burn to do when I decided to get rid of the LES, which I should do sooner, but I always forget. You may be able to guess from the picture above

The ship decoupled from the launcher upper stage

Note that those monoprop tanks go up almost empty, so just 150 units between them. I needed 148 of them to establish a stable orbit.

Now to send an engine module to dock with the Whittle and bring it to the station.

[G'th]

Today, I found out that you can just burn straight up towards the Mun.

[Wabbit]

Added a spacejump module to the JLIS station. Basically just a 3-man capsule with a vanguard parachute container and ejector seat attached to it. It points toward planet, and fires crew into the atmosphere and I deploy the chutes there.

[Cirocco]

Refined the design for my orbital bus spaceplane, tried to build a super-heavy refueler spaceplane but gave up after realising that large wings are stupidly flexible and unstable. Guess we'll stick to rocket-style refuelers. Also did my first Mun and Minmus flyby with an SSTO spaceplane. Made a spaceplane design with LVN-engines, gonna test that now, see how far I can get with it

[DisarmingBaton5]

AWACS

[Grin]

I made myself a Super Flunker, an extended, widened version of my latest space plane success.

It almost looks like an F-14 from the rear.

[Qwotty]

Tried to reach Minmus. Sadly, my Jebediah is MIA after he failed to circularize a slingshot orbit from Minmus to deep space.

[Duke23]

Well since the forums were down I had to actually play the game... It got pretty interesting. If you lurk the Facebook page you may have seen some of these already.

Found a class-a asteroid and decided to bring it down instead of parking it in orbit.

Transferring to the deorbiter with Anfield, my best and ballsiest pilot, at the helm. He's been to the Mun several times, landed on Duna, and miraculously survived all of my prototype SSTO designs with some pretty close shaves, so I thought he'd be perfect to send up for something like this.

Wheeeeee! Oh look I'm not gonna make it to KSC, darnit Anfield I just got through saying what a good pilot you were. Oh that's right you landed way off target on Duna too.

Chutes got the whole rig down to a little less than 10m/s before touchdown.

Allow me to preface this with "duh, I should know better." At first I tried to hang on. The asteroid rolled over onto the ship and broke some of it. But I had a decoupler on the claw for this exact reason (drop the asteroid near the ground then gently set the ship on that little strut that's, err, sticking up in the air). The game had different plans though... When I quickloaded to try the original plan, I had no chutes and I was darn lucky I was pretty close to the ground already. I blew the decoupler and landed right on top of the asteroid and bounced. It wasn't pretty, but Anfield survived and that's what matters.

Well I'm stuck 25km out from KSC now what do I do? Build a truck of course! I pulled this design for an asteroid hauler out of my rear and put it through some cursory testing. It's front heavy on purpose, so if you hit the brakes while unloaded it does some entertaining rolls. I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish with the winch in this shot. You may already see what my problem is going to be.

Problem was I was so busy being excited about cross country asteroid trucking, I didn't actually consider the size of the asteroid. Err, yeah this should work. Not. It's horribly unstable, keeps breaking struts, can't phys-warp or go over ~12m/s, and constantly forces the truck to turn one direction or the other.

But I did get it back to KSC where I realized that even my largest crane that I normally use for carrying planes and other junk I leave laying around, wasn't big enough to pick it up without the stabilizer legs down.

It's okay though, I got this. I'll just build a trailer! (This is one of the prototype designs that got rejected)

Unfortunately my crane operator, Lembin, lost his life during trailer tests. He was standing on a ladder that's connected to the trailer to attach KAS pipes, and the winches plug mode got flipped from docked (clipping into the trailer) to undocked, which pretty much made everything go boom. The trailer bucked, the asteroid and Lembin both got tossed into the air; he obviously went farther and made a disturbing little poof sound when he hit the ground. Apparently that's something you don't do. That particular design wanted to bind with the truck, and it was narrow enough that it would start to roll if you turn too hard. Research was continued and after a couple more mishaps but no more loss of life, I was able to make one that worked surprisingly well.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Duke23

[Dire_Squid]

I've got no pics, but, besides making a new Kethane/SCANsat satellite for Kerbin (a complete map), I jokingly made an asparagus-style rocket, to see how far it could fly out... and... after tweaking its orbit here and there, I had THREE almost close orbits with Eve!

I've gotten into the planet's orbit, but never close enough to use the SCANsat or Kethane gear.

[Overfloater]

I landed on (and returned from) the MOON! Yay!

This is on just RSS - no FAR or deadly re-entry or anything... I like stock aerodynamics :-)

[Othuyeg]

It turns out kerbals need spacetoilets. To do space... business. My minmus mining operation did not have one and after a few years the kerbals on site were starting to send in displeased communications.

I delivered my first space toilet. It can also be used to refuel EVA packs.

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[Duke23]

Who needs logic when you have a large truck and an abundance of winches? (related to this post)

Six winches to be exact (5 in the back) and seating for 5 kerbals as well. Raises the front wheels off the ground to load cargo. I really wish I had this yesterday... And yes, apparently I'm going through a 6-wheeler phase.

If you're wondering where the other fuel tank is from the roid deorbiter (you're probably not), me too. Earlier I went to get all that stuff with the smaller truck and trailer and as I was playing around with the stray tank, everything just fell through Kerbin into some kind of kraken hole. I wigged out and terminated the game's process and when I went back the tank was gone.

[TrooperCooper]

I launched my first manned Duna mission. And suprisingly, besides some minor issues with Bobs mentality, it went pretty smooth. All of em made it back to Kerbin safely.

[soulsource]

I learned yesterday, that

a) The Ballmer Peak is quite easy to miss - at least I blame it on the little bit of alcohol I had consumed, that I tried again to build a transfer stage for my Eve lander (see my previous post)

Although it is in principle possible to build such a stage in VAB, it is practically impossible to get the thing stable enough to launch it to orbit. Alone that it gets bigger than the launch pad (to make sure its engines don't damage the lander) caused some critical failures...

c) It's not a good idea to click the EVA button in low atmosphere.

d) Kerbals in EVA can survive the crash onto Kerbins surface after falling hundreds of meters with nothing but their jetpack to brake.

e) Kerbals cannot jump very high on Kerbin, so they need additional ladders in order to enter crafts on landing legs...

Apart from all that funny more or less failures, I sent a few refuelling missions to the Eve lander in Kerbin orbit. Soon I'll be able to send it to a high orbit (just before escape) and do a final refill. I'm already working on the design for a ship that can bring a full Kerbodyne S3-14400 tank to Eve orbit, in order to have something that can refill my eve lander once it is in eves orbit.

[KerbMav]

The Explorer II (Ex-II) finished its test mission of visiting all anomalies on Mun via suborbital hops and marking them with flags (of course!).

It was then determined to decommission the prototype, as it was deemed not viable for missions far away from Kerbin.

During the trips it was necessary to refuel the ship twice, both as a test of the mining equipment and as an excercise for a new pilot, so the old Kethane tanker was sent over to Mun - after a small craft carrying a pilot up from KSC, as well as a portable converter to refuel the tankers LF/OX reserves from the Kethane in its cargo tanks.

After the decision to scrap the Ex-II, the tanker docked once more - fuel lines were not capable of using the converter, so the tanker would have to hitch a ride. Luckily it was designed to take of vertically (for show mostly) so it was perfectly balanced and could be pushed around at full throttle docked to the Ex-II's nose!

After aiming at a PE of 200km at Kerbin and getting the lab crew into the passenger seats of the tanker, the ship split for a last time: The tanker would make one full orbit (due to scheduling issues ) before aerobreaking into LKO; the control module of the Ex-II would RCS-thrust its PE down to 38km (would take one pass through the atmosphere to slow down first, as no heat shield was implemented); the remaining two modules of the Ex-II burned a bit inefficiently before reaching PE (so I could follow the lander down), but got a lucky encounter with Minmus (where all nuke ships have to be sent to rest for security reasons [in my universe ]), hopefully fuel reserves will suffice for a soft landing.

[Also in my universe: The first try get all three vessels timed in a way I could steer them failed, so I had to reload and do some things again - after the lander touched down, the game started puking and crashed - do not yet know how much I will have to repeat once more. Should I restart my PC more often after prolonged playing of different games?]

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While the basic concept of the Explorer II worked out, it has some minor and some more aggravating flaws.

The ship was designed to split in three modules:

mission module carrying a lab, a fuel reserve, the ships computer core, long range communications, orbital scanning equipment and a Kethane converter;

control module with cockpit, thrusters and some of the smaller science gizzmos;

drive stage with the engines, main fuel tanks and two Kethane drills.

By rearranging the ship it would not have to carry a dedicated lander module.

Problems that showed up in the field test:

ladder leading up to one or the radial tanks does not allow kerbonauts to get of the ladder and step on the tank to walk up to the crew pod;

monoprop on lander is a bit low and the only tank for the whole ship, while the latter is fine, there is not much margin for error during docking;

lander, esp. when refueled, is quite heavy and therefore hard to control and has a lower TWR than I would like;

redocking has to be quite precise, the crew pod has to be oriented towards the ladder and docking struts relative to the engines;

refueling would have been a bit painful in some situations, as the lander cannot take of from every location when fully fuel-mined on the surface.

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My personal goal to visit all anomalies before switching to .24 is complete for Minmus (from an earlier expedition in the same save) and Mun now.

A Moho probe will tell me how good I am doing in regards to arriving at Moho instead of passing it ... and a Jool probe will map the moons over there to find any anomalies.

What is still hampering with my efforts is my inability to design a simple atmospheric plane to get to the anomalies on Kerbin ...

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Mission log, B. Kerman - after many weeks of testing the Ex-II it became clear we could not sent anyone away from Kerbin with it, its flaws might endanger the crew - and the mission. Yet the trip to Mun was still a success! We discovered three more of these strange monoliths, as well as three stone archs and a crashed vessel of very strange design! We could not gain access to it, no visible points of entry and the hull proved impervious to our tools. Control issued the order to revisit some locations on Kerbin for closer study - also some new signals were picked up by our satellites around the time Jeb started banging on the crashed vessel! Interesting times lie before us - and for the two rookies that manned the Ex-II's lab, they have been chosen for the next manned mission to leave Kerbin.

[G'th]

Today I sent my first SSTO on its maiden voyage, a simple, 5 day orbit of Kerbin. Here we see Inspiration on the second day of its mission.

[GoSlash27]

Testing and debugging the M3V.

It's a combination SSTO lander/ rock crawler/ delivery truck. The idea is I can use a pair of them to deliver hitchhiker cans to the surface, truck them around to wherever I want, link them together, then return to orbit for the crew in lander modules.

Each M3V is composed of 2 modules weighing 5 tons or less (my entire space program is designed around 5 ton payloads to LKO) and the tank/thruster assembly is modular so I can scale it to a particular moon.

Almost ready for unkerballed testing on Minmus.

[TheVillain]

Started a new save the other day and decided to do an apollo style mun mission, while at it I got this screenshot:

Probably the most beautiful image I've captured so far in this game.

[michaelhester07]

Not much happened that I screenshotted today.

Prepwork is in progress for the next Duna window to construct the Utopia Planitia Shipyard in orbit of Ike. It will be the single largest station I ever made so far and is styled to look like the spacedock the Enterprise was docked at in Star Trek 1. I'll even make that iconic light panel.

To build it I'm launching 5 of my Saggitarius Freighters. Combined with the station deployer module these have enough supplies to build the station.

Testing was finished on the Rigel 2 miner (showing below)

The Rigel 2 is a smaller version of the Rigel Ore miner and has capacity for only 70 tons as opposed to the original 400 ton capacity. This is so that the ship can take off from a Mun sized celestial body and be able to achieve an orbit with deltaV to spare for maneuvers. This also allows it to be transferred to Duna with its own transfer stage. Some kethane refueling will be necessary on arrival before mining can begin.

[GregE]

Delivered Bill, Doodop, and Kirbart to Domus Station in LKO. They'll hang out while I send up the rest of the modules. I have two large sections planned, including a "lifeboat", as well as a dedicated Mun/Minmus lander that will use Station as its base of operations (it won't be able to return to Kerbin).

However, I won't be sending up the lander until I get my mapping satellites in orbit around the moons.

[Grin]

Today I sent my first SSTO on its maiden voyage' date=' a simple, 5 day orbit of Kerbin. Here we see Inspiration on the second day of its mission.

[url']http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/576771829482139405/33E7B0104B7BF55472FF1A73658502140E7329D8/

I see your Inspiration, and raise you the Enumerator:

[Cirocco]

Installed FAR today, very quickly came to several conclusions regarding spaceplanes:

1) need to redesign all my spaceplanes. Not that this is a bad thing, I like designing. All of the current ones designed for vanilla KSP have way too much thrust and way too much wing. They'll get off the runway, but that's all they'll do because they'll disintegrate 50 meters in flight

2) need to learn to fly all over again. On the bright side, planes seem to handle much more realistically now.

3) compared to vanilla KSP, planes go up to ludicrous speeds at high altitude

4) getting to space with a space plane requires a ton less jet engine fuel. Can invest more into adding more rocket fuel/oxidizer. yay!

5) landing is an absolute female dog

6) air intake shmair intake! Two ram intakes per engine is already overkill. I got to near-flameout altitudes and still had a ton of intake air to spare.

I haven't even touched rocket launches yet

Edited May 30, 2014 by Cirocco